The Pope County Quorum Court will consider today whether to approve a request by the Sheriff’s Office for additional funds.

Sheriff Aaron DuVall told the court’s Budget Committee on Tuesday he needed additional funds for fuel and vehicle repair parts as well as for food, medical care and medicine for inmates.

The committee approved a recommendation for the full court to consider DuVall’s request for $24,440 for fuel, oil and lubricants. The court is also expected to consider several transfer requests totaling $23,960 to move money from various other line items within the sheriff’s budget to fuel, oil and lubricants.

DuVall had requested $27,700 for food, $41,689 for medical expenses and $18,159 for medicine — a total of $87,548 — which he said should satisfy the jail’s expenses for the rest of the year.

DuVall said the court had previously asked him to cut his budget back in some of these areas, which partly led to the need to come back and request additional funds. In other areas, such as medical care, costs were higher than expected. He said his department worked to reduce costs as much as possible.

The committee approved half of the sheriff’s request to be presented to the full court, or $43,774. That amount will be divided among the three categories in which funds are needed. Justices of the peace cited concerns about the amount of available funds in the county’s General Fund as the reason for cutting his request.

Prior to Tuesday’s meeting, the General Fund had $165,254.46 in funds available to appropriate.

The Quorum Court is scheduled to meet at 5:30 p.m. today at the Pope County Courthouse.

More than sixty percent of the yearly county income is used directly under the authority of the sheriff.

When the sheriff takes 92 thousand dollars from general revenue and spends it on four new vehicles instead of totally refurbishing nine existing vehicles, it is a direct indicator of bad management. When you cant make five million dollars cover the departmental expenses in a county this small (population) something is rotten in Denmark, and Pope county, too.

We need Qualified, experienced, competent leadership within the county government, and boot out the boss hog crowd.